


Committed

by TigerDragon



Series: Shadow Games [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Assassins & Hitmen, Devotion, Emotionally Repressed, F/M, Gunplay, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Violence, Situational Humiliation, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-01
Updated: 2012-09-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:57:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerDragon/pseuds/TigerDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John apparently can't even do the shopping without Sherlock getting him into trouble. The woman holding the gun on him looks normal enough, but John can tell straight away that Sasha Moran is <i>loads</i> of trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Committed

There were good days and bad days with Sherlock - days when John’s leg felt fantastic, when he wasn’t thinking about the war or Harry’s drinking or his growing collection of ex-girlfriends, when there was just the right amount of danger and challenge and manic deduction. There were the days when he could watch the genius think for hours, bewildered and fascinated, before following him out the door on a mad chase that ended in laughter or an arrest or both. There were even some days when Sherlock wasn’t on a case but hadn’t yet slid down into the depths of crushing boredom--then John could persuade him to do something halfway normal like eat at Angelo’s (actually _eat_ ) while horrifying the other patrons with some gruesome conversation or other, or watch telly and spoil all the endings, or chat about Scotland Yard’s cold cases while John made dinner. There were plenty of good days, enough to make 221 Baker Street the only place he wanted to live.  
  
John knew that it wasn’t going to be a good day when someone put a gun against his spine on his way back from the butcher’s.   
  
There were a limited number of options for dealing with a gun and even fewer for how to handle a week’s worth of meat shopping with less than two hands. The two sets didn’t go well together.  
  
“Gently now, love,” a pleasant female voice with an indistinct boarding school accent warned him. “Why don’t we take a little walk together, and you just hold on to those bags?”  
  
The barrel pressed harder into his back, and he moved in the indicated direction, heart rate rising. “Not holding me up for my mutton, then?”  
  
“No, but if you’ve got a rasher of bacon in there, I might have you cook it for me. Just a little favour between friends, like.” She was amused, now. That could be either good or bad - good if she was starting to like him, bad if she was anticipating his bloody demise. You could never tell with some people. “Just up the road and into the sixth door on the right, and there’s a good man. No heroics; be sensible and you’ll be home in time for a late dinner and a call to your mates from the Northumberland Fusiliers to let them know that dear old Captain John is still hale and hearty.”  
  
Of course she knew who he was; most abductors did. The fact that she knew his history told him that she had bothered to study him and that she had the means to do so. Not comforting. He wondered if he’d ever get used to being threatened by powerful people.  A year ago he’d have denied it was even a possibility, but then again, a year ago he’d also have said that there were no circumstances under which he’d put up with eyeballs in the microwave.   
  
They proceeded down the lane, John keeping an inoffensively neutral expression on his face so as to avoid tipping someone off who could spook his assailant. She was a professional with steady hands, but when someone’s got a pistol to your spine you don’t really want to test it.  
  
Speaking of danger, the adrenaline had done its work by the time they passed the third door. His senses were sharper, his mind faster, and he felt like he could swim the Thames if necessary. With Sherlock you had to be prepared for anything.  
  
Sherlock . John didn’t know how, but he was sure this was his colleague’s fault. The thought that Sherlock was probably also in some kind of danger threatened to overwhelm John with worry, but the doctor viciously stamped it out. He couldn’t do anything for anyone if he was lying dead in an alley.  
  
They reached the door, which was up a small flight of steps to offer it a modest little view down the whole length of the street in either direction.   
  
“It’s open,” she said in that same pleasant voice, as if she were inviting him in for tea or an afternoon shag. It was actually more than a little disconcerting to be talked to so mildly when his blood was up - a deep and threatening growl would have clashed less with the mood. “If you’d be so kind, John?”  
  
As he grasped the knob, he smiled his usual, tense violence-anticipation smile. The fact that he had one was not something he shared with his therapist.  
  
The door opened into a small utility flat, kitchen to the right of the entry hall and sitting room to the left, and the nudge of the pistol in his spine directed him into the latter before he had time to slow down in uncertainty. Tan and green-stripe wallpaper, old but reasonable furniture, no trace of pictures or other bits of personal detritus - probably not someone’s home, then. A safehouse of some sort? Difficult to tell. Sherlock would probably have known by the stains in the carpet or some nonsense like that. Of course, Sherlock would probably have got his spine blown in half by virtue of being totally unable to keep his mouth shut long enough to get inside, so on the whole it was probably best that he was alive and unaware of the meaning of the carpet stains.   
  
“Tartan couch. Hands folded on your packages, please, and keep them in your lap for now.” The pressure of the gun left his spine, and he was allowed to sit. It also gave him his first look at his captor, which was an uncomfortable surprise.  
  
She was quite attractive, really, in a nondescript sort of way. Dark hair, dark eyes, skin just a bit to the dusky side of English, slim and that middling sort of height that never drew comment, athletic without being obviously muscular - she could have been at home on any street in the world, and a police sketch artist could have papered London with her face without causing her the least inconvenience. Oh, they’d have gotten calls - enough to stack the forms to the top of Big Ben, and no help at all. She could have been anyone’s girl, anyone’s sister, anyone’s daughter. The long brown coat she wore over her blouse and skirt was fit for the weather, not to mention the perfect place to hide a silenced pistol, and with her scarf and her brown leather boots and matching shoulder-bag she would vanish into any Baker Street crowd with a minimum of effort.  
  
It was the eyes that gave her away. He’d seen them before, and it hadn’t been in London or in a woman’s face. He’d had to go all the way to Afghanistan to see eyes like that, and he’d taken careful note of the men who had them and then avoided being stuck on a patrol where they might do something right in front of him that would keep him from sleeping the rest of his life.  
  
“There. Comfy?” The smile could have been pleasant enough, the sort he’d gotten from a girl in a bar more than once, but the voice had just enough mockery in it to let him know who was boss. As if the suppressed Browning automatic in her right hand weren’t proof enough of that.  
  
He gave her the tense smile. “Fine, thanks.”   
  
“Good.” She walked to the chair by the window, a big brown leather affair that looked indecently comfortable, and settled into it. The gun stayed in her lap, pointed in his direction but no longer precisely aimed. He could have tried to charge her, get it away from her.   
  
Another look at those eyes and the subtle tick at the edge of her lips suggested she was probably anticipating him doing exactly that with a certain degree of relish.   
  
He looked away, pursing his lips. A few inches from his feet there really was a stain on the carpet, or rather, a bleached spot. He couldn’t deduce anything useful from it.  
  
The woman was still staring at him intensely. “Sorry, do I know you?”  
  
“No,” she murmured, laughing softly at some private joke, “I don’t imagine you do. But we have met, John. Twice now, in fact.”  
  
Could he have forgotten? No. He’d’ve remembered her eyes. “Right. So you know me, somehow, but aren’t telling.” Something about her was starting to seem familiar, the thought just out of reach. “Is this a guessing game or do you want to surprise me?”  
  
“Oh, I think I’ve already done that second. Pity, too - he makes you out to be so much brighter than you are. Or duller, but I’m fairly certain he’s just being jealous. He can be that way when it comes to the Irreplaceable Mister Holmes.” He could hear the capitals when she said it, and every one of them was dipped in poison.   
  
A half-second later, everything fell together with a thud in his stomach and he couldn’t help freezing in place. Suddenly he saw the red dot on Sherlock’s forehead, felt the explosives vest heavy around his chest, smelled the chlorine.  
  
It was _definitely_ a bad day.  
  
Finally he managed to clear his throat. “Ah. So you’d be the one with the laser-sights, then?”  
  
“One of them.” Her smile could have taught lessons to a cobra in malignant satisfaction. “The one aimed at your chest, mostly. Seven sixty-two by fifty-one would have settled you properly, explosives or not, or your Mister Holmes, for that matter. I’ve never met anyone who could outthink a bullet.”  
  
The sane and reasonable part of his brain was telling the rest of him that it was a Bad Idea to bait the person-- _crazy person_ \- who had a gun trained on you. It was outvoted by the adrenaline.  
  
“Oh? You think Moriarty would do much better?”  
  
“Mister Moriarty,” she purred, her voice dropping half an octave as though she enjoyed just _saying_ the name aloud, “knows that the business of an operations officer is to plan things and leave the messy side of things to someone with the right hands for it.”  
  
He laughed. It was the stress, he couldn’t help it. “You did _not_ just call that nutter your operations officer.”  
  
She was off the chair inside half a heartbeat, and the barrel of the gun was suddenly very sharp and very cool against his forehead. “You want to be careful about your manners when you speak about Mister Moriarty,” the woman told him in a voice like sharpened ice, “or I might have a little accident with the trigger and have to explain to him that you got out of hand. ‘Nothing I could do, sir - he just had to play the hero.’ I’m sure your Mister Holmes can always find another _pet_ to keep around the house.”  
  
Gritting his teeth, John forced himself to take a few breaths. _He’d probably exhume my skull to talk to, bullet-hole or no. Or just switch my head with someone else’s in the morgue to avoid all that needless digging. ‘Here lies most of John Watson and ten percent of George Smith.’_   
  
No. This was _not_ the time to think morbid thoughts. Happy thoughts. Possibly involving shoving that pistol somewhere satisfying.  
  
He tried to look as contrite as he absolutely did not feel. “Sorry.”  
  
“You’re not, but it’s nice to see you know how to pretend. Did they teach you that when they made you an officer?” She stepped back, finger stroking the trigger lightly as if she was considering blowing his head off just because, then lowered the pistol a fraction and moved back to her chair without taking her eyes off him.  
  
“Tactical bullshite is a very important skill.” Slowly, eyes still on Psycho Groupie, he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to loosen the knots the gun had put there. “Keeping up morale and all that.”  
  
Her lips twisted in a nasty little smile, and she ran her eyes up and down him in a frank, evaluating way that made him feel more than slightly dirty. “I imagine you keep his morale up just fine.”  
  
John sighed. Someday he was going to get so tired of this that he’d just agree to whatever relationship he was supposedly having with Sherlock. “Yes, ha ha, snigger at our ostensible relationship. Please, have another go, everyone else does.”  
  
Somewhat to his surprise, she didn’t. In fact, she tilted her head and looked at him with what might almost have been sympathy if it hadn’t been coming from a woman who’d just threatened to blow his head off. “Except that he’s not having any of it, is he? All in his head. You could lie next to him in bed, strip off and have a go at him and he’d still be thinking about the next big problem to solve.”  
  
It was medically impossible, of course, but it felt like his brain was twisting sideways. Her voice, which was much sexier than any psychopath’s should be allowed to sound, describing hypothetical events that had never crossed his mind and were now scraping their way through it...If things hadn’t been pear-shaped before, they certainly were now.   
  
He was about to say something he was going to regret.  
  
“Either that or I’d be a carefully controlled experiment.”  
  
And there was the blood rushing to his face. That hadn’t happened in a while.   
  
She laughed softly, her eyes darkening even further - pupils dilating, possible emotional or arousal response, his medical training noted in the back of his head - and she lounged back in the chair with a rueful little smile that was entirely too familiar for comfort. “And even so, just to have a little flare of satisfaction in his eye....”  
  
Her tongue touched her teeth, just barely visibly, and the blush expanded vigorously in an effort to make him light-headed as well as embarrassed. Of course he’d be lusting after Moriarity’s hench-woman. Of course she’d be simultaneously scrambling his composure with extremely unhelpful speculation. He was John Watson, doctor, soldier, and ridiculous bugger who thought it was fun to run after a brilliant madman chasing down other, stupider madmen.  
  
Grasping for something, anything to end this conversation, he glanced down at the packages. “How about that bacon?”  
  
She laughed, richly amused by the attempt at a subject change. “If I let you do that, will you spare me the inevitable chase through the street that ends with me shooting you through the skull?”  
  
John’s lips twitched. “Wasn’t there a comedy skit about that? Bacon or death?”  
  
“Death,” she replied cheerfully, “but bacon first.”  
  
Moving very slowly, John stood, packages in hand. The woman did not shoot him. “So that line about home by dinner was just a ruse. I guess bacon is a middling-good last meal.”  
  
“I honestly have no idea if it was a ruse or not. He’s going to call and let me know if I should let you go or if your tall, lanky lover has irritated him enough to shoot you. I’m betting on letting you go, which is a bit of a disappointment to me, but I try to be philosophical about these things.”  
  
Searching the cupboards for a pan, John snorted. “I’m sure they’re having the time of their lives. Probably playing four-dimensional crime chess.”  
  
“Doesn’t it make you absolutely melt?”  
  
She was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, fingertips of her left hand toying with the buttons of her expensive off-the-rack blouse while her right cradled the gun, and he was standing there with bacon in one hand and a pan in the other. Surreal did not begin to cover situations like this.  
  
Knowing his luck, Mycroft was probably filming this. After the last few months he’d decided it was best to just assume you were being watched. If the elder Holmes was in a ‘humourous’ mood, perhaps he’d send a recording to the flat.  
  
“Um. I don’t suppose you’d stop that if I asked nicely?”  
  
Her eyebrow lifted subtly, lips quirking in amusement and …. please God let that not be flirtation. “Stop what exactly, John? You’re going to have to be more specific, to start, and then ask _very_ nicely indeed.”  
  
Heat came rushing back to his face. “Right, then, carry on.” He flicked the stove on, weighing the merits of killing them both in a gas explosion.  
  
Was she... whistling?  
  
With a glare, he slapped the bacon in the pan rather more forcefully than necessary. If he lived through this, he was going to kill Sherlock, and if he didn’t survive, he was bloody well going to haunt the bastard.   
  
In his peripheral vision, he watched her put the kettle on and then settle herself on the edge of the kitchen table, and the way she handled the gun was so deceptively, temptingly casual. Like she was hardly paying attention and he could get it away from her any time he wanted. She even brushed up against his back when she walked back to the table, close enough to make a swing for with a pan full of grease and bacon if he was feeling suitably anti-domestic.  
  
It was hard to resist--not just for his own sake but because Sherlock could be doing something fantastically reckless right now while John was cooking bacon for a psychopath. He made himself resist--in Afghanistan, he’d seen a junior officer ignore the women in a group of detained suspected insurgents only to die when one of them detonated the dynamite under her obscuring robes. After that he’d stopped thinking that being prohibited from driving or voting or walking alone meant that they also wouldn’t be allowed to die in a ball of purifying fire. Compared to that, Moriarity’s girl’s baiting was blatantly obvious. He ignored it.  
  
 _Is this her version of small talk? Might as well, I guess. Maybe get some useful information.  
_  
“You never introduced yourself.”  
  
“You never asked.” She laughed softly, and there was a note of challenge in it. “Not very polite for a Captain of Her Majesty’s Army, are you? But I suppose I’d better mind my own manners. Sasha Moran, and I do believe the pleasure’s all mine.”  
  
John clenched his teeth to stop himself from agreeing.  
  
“You’re ex-military too, right? You strike me as either an SAS or SBS kind of girl.”  
  
Her little hiss of a laugh came out between her teeth. “No so dull after all, apparently. Staff Sergeant, with the Regiment for six years and the Recon for four. One of your lot mustered me out, come to think of it.”  
  
Turning the bacon allowed him a moment to let that sink in. He tried to remember what he’d seen of her movements, but everything had looked sleek and easy. “You’re good at hiding whatever wound you’ve got. I suppose you’d have to be.” Leaving the spatula leaning on the edge of the pan, he started looking for plates.  
  
“Right cabinet, I think.” She was watching him very closely now, the edge of her mouth quirked in a strange little smile. “He says you limp sometimes, but you took the round in the shoulder. Must have hurt like the devil to get your wires crossed like that. No limp now - goes away when your blood gets up, doesn’t it?”  
  
He took two small plates from a set of chipped, mass-market china, muttering. “Does _everyone_ know about that?”  
  
“I work for James, Doctor Watson - he knows everything. It’s one of his charms.” She let him handle the bacon unassisted, pouring both their cups of tea one-handed and then mixing in a generous helping of sugar and a measure of milk for each. “Do sit down.”  
  
John set the plates on the scuffed table, pulled out an equally ill-used chair, and sat. Sasha set a mug in front of him, gun still in hand, then took her own from the side. He briefly wondered how much practice she’d had doing domestic tasks with one hand on a firearm, then stopped. There was nothing good down that line of thought.   
  
“So,” the doctor said after the first hot mouthful of bacon, “How long have you been...working for him?” Maybe talk of ‘Mister Moriarty’ would distract her.  
  
“A year or so - perhaps a bit longer. I didn’t really note the date of that first job, though I imagine I could find it in the police records if it mattered. Time with him isn’t like time with boring people.” Her smile was subtly knowing. “And you?”  
  
“A year last month,” John answered, frowning. Her military background, her medical discharge, her willingness to do mad things for a mad genius, the time they’d worked together--a number of unsettling coincidences seemed to be piling up. “You don’t have a gay, alcoholic brother, do you?”  
  
“He’s not gay, that I know of, though I wouldn’t be surprised. The little shit and I haven’t talked in ages.” She bared her teeth in a smile. “If I could spare the time, I’d pay him a visit, but you know how it is. Busy, busy.”  
  
Awkwardly coughing to smother his hysterical laughter, John lodged a bit of bacon in his throat instead and started choking. _Dear God, if I have to die here I’m going to make her bloody well fight me for it._ After only one or two coughs, he managed to clear his throat.   
  
She was looking at him with an odd mixture of amusement, sadistic pleasure, and worry. He returned the look thoughtfully. “So, I was under the impression you wanted to kill me, but it looked like I was putting you out just then.”  
  
“If you’re going to be killed,” she said in a voice of pure, reasonable sense, “then _I_ want to kill you. Besides, I wouldn’t like to let him down.”  
  
She didn’t say it as though she were afraid of what he might do to her - and given what John had seen of Moriarty’s tempestuous rages that could scarcely have been a worse prospect - so much as if the idea of disappointing the man was unacceptable on its own merits.   
  
The tea was too sweet, but he could probably use the sugar at the rate his metabolism had been going. He was reasonably sure she hadn’t slipped poison into it. “One day circumstances will be beyond your control, you know. Nobody’s flawless.”  
  
“I know.” She said the words as calmly and coolly as if she were discussing the weather. “Shit, as we say in the field, happens.”  
  
The remainder of John’s bacon sat uneaten on his plate underneath an incredulous look. “Yeah, and he’ll kill you for it. Or maybe he’ll just wake up and decide that Boxing Day should be celebrated by shooting an employee.”  
  
She shrugged lightly, and there was something genuinely frightening about the serene amusement in her eyes. “Probably. Or he’ll decide I’m expendable some day. So what? Yours is likely to get you killed long before he stops finding me useful, but that’s hardly going to stop you, now is it?”  
  
John made a noise of protest in his throat. “I’d leave if I thought he was going to try to kill me. It’s not the same.”  
  
“Of course it is,” she snorted. “You’ll be just as dead.”  
  
He blew out an exasperated noise not unlike the one he had for ‘Why is there a severed limb in the refrigerator AGAIN?’   
  
“Not the point. Getting shot or strangled in the line of duty is one thing; knowing your colleague is going to kill you himself one day is another.”  
  
“Quite. It’s a good deal more satisfactory, really.” She curved her lips in a wistful little smile that should have looked a lot less attractive given the topic of the conversation. “I do hope he does it himself. It would be disappointing if he didn’t. Of course, the person he’d send to do it if it wasn’t him is me, so that does help my chances.”  
  
There was a look that cartoon characters sometimes got, with jaw agape and eyes bulging in different sizes, maybe some spirals revolving over their heads. John felt that he must look like that now.  
  
“You’d at least fight him.” His voice was back to incredulous.  
  
“Of course I would. He’d hate it if I didn’t.”  
  
No, he’d been wrong. _Now_ his expression of horror and disbelief was cartoonish. He didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say to that, really.  
  
The lukewarm bacon was still good.   
  
“You’d give your life for him,” she said softly, when it was clear that he wasn’t going to say anything. “Not just to save his, but to help him solve one of his little puzzles. To give him pleasure. The only difference is the mechanics, John.”  
  
Stiffening in his chair, he shook his head once. He wouldn’t. Not for a case.   
  
What about catching Moriarty? If he thought they could make it stick?   
  
What about chasing Sherlock into a room with a dozen loaded guns, or explosives, or running down an alley barely looking where he was going? Or taking on a half-dozen big Russian bastards without a gun in his hands because Sherlock just had to ask one more bloody question?   
  
_How many times have you run blindly after him because he called?_   
  
Shit.  
  
And she knew. She _understood_ , so much so that she told him his own motivations before he had a chance to un-repress them or whatever it was you did with suppressed desires.   
  
Dear God. The first person who understood why he stayed with Sherlock, and she was not only someone who’d cheerfully blow his head off but also gagging for Moriarty.   
  
John carefully slid the plate to one side, then buried his face in his hands with a long exhale .   
  
Her left hand slid over the back of his neck before he realized she’d stood up. “Is there anything,” she asked in a voice like hot silk, “that you wouldn’t let him do to you if he troubled himself to ask first?”  
  
Shoulder muscles reflexively bunching under her touch, John forced himself not to jump. A quick glance between his fingers confirmed his fear that she still had the gun. Damn.  
  
“Killing or maiming me,” he began. “The more extreme fetishes. Dangerous medical experiments.” _Being made to run naked through London? No, if it were somehow critical to solving a crime. Acting as a decoy? No, already done that, don’t want to do it again, but I would. Sex? He wouldn’t ask, not his area. But if he did...  
_  
He trailed off. A second ago he’d been sure that list was longer.  
  
“‘The more extreme fetishes.’ What a charmingly vague phrase, Doctor Watson.” Her hand stayed at the back of his neck, the gun whispering against the leather of its holster, and then her right hand was sliding down under the collar of his jacket and raking lightly against the fabric of his jumper as if she were a cat kneading at him. “What precisely constitutes a fetish too extreme for your compliance? His hands around your throat, squeezing just enough to make you dizzy but not enough to starve your brain while he tests out a theory? Testing a blade against your skin to see how a small cut compares to the wound on a body? Letting him drug you before he...”  
  
John swallowed, more unwanted thoughts taking root in his mind, but he was a soldier and could act despite his discomfiture. The gun was in the holster and her hands were within inches of his.  Before he’d really thought about it, John seized Sasha’s wrists, surging upwards out of the chair and pushing her backwards. Turning to the right, he pulled her arms downward, trying to throw her. She heaved against him, pulling him into the motion, and then her knee came up into the back of the chair hard and the wooden edge drove most of the air of his lungs when it slammed up under his ribs. The table rammed into his spine as he fell backward, reflexively trying to manage the impact, and her right hand went for the gun in its holster along her left side. He kicked the chair clear, driving for her hand, and got his fingers around her wrist as the silencer jammed itself into his ribs. Her left hand drove up into his throat, tightening savagely, and she bared her teeth in a hungry smile that even an awkward right hook across her jaw didn’t shake. She drove him back against the table again while he slid his hand to her upper arm, levering the barrel away from his body with his elbow, the silencer dragging across his arm, and the gun didn’t go off.   
  
Her fingers tightened on his throat, his other hand drove against her wrists to break the grip, and then her knee came up hard into his groin and everything exploded in pain.   
  
When it subsided enough to notice anything else, he found himself half-lying on the table with Sasha’s hand still at his throat, her gun in his ribs, and her mouth covering his greedily. There was hot breath and blood in the bruised kiss - hers, probably, since he’d hit her in the mouth as hard as leverage had allowed - and he could feel the adrenaline-boosted hammer of her pulse through his jumper where her body was pressed up against him. It was possibly not the most perverse moment of his life to be aware of his own painful arousal, but if it wasn’t then he couldn’t think of another just now.  
  
He thought about biting her, but had a feeling that would only encourage her. Pushing against her shoulder with one hand and trying to stop her strangling him with the other, he broke off the kiss.   
  
“Get off.”  
  
“That,” she husked out as she shifted her weight against his, keeping him from getting back his balance or his leverage, “is very much what I had in mind, John. Glad to see we’re on the same page.”  
  
Cursing himself for even sitting at the damn table in the first place, John glared. “No,” he ground out, mostly ignoring the heat of her body and the fire in her eyes. “Get the hell off me.”  
  
“Fine.” She gave him a hard shove that nearly pitched him back over the table, letting go of him in the process, and by the time he got his hands back under him she had the pistol in a professionally two-handed grip and aimed squarely at his forehead. “Is your virtue feeling preserved, Doctor Watson?”  
  
Staring at her silently, John took several deep breaths in an attempt to steady his nerves. It was a lot easier when it was either a life-or-death situation or arousal; both at the same time was decidedly more difficult.   
  
“Sorry. I don’t sleep with women who want to kill me. Especially with a gun in her hand.”  
  
“You have a lot of experience with that?” She bared her teeth in a smile that reminded him of a tiger he’d seen in the zoo a few months ago. “Besides, I put the gun away. It was your idea to have it back out.”  
  
John wondered if it was even worth it to keep talking to her. He let the table take most of his weight, resting his arms in case there was another opportunity to overpower her. The arousal was flagging, thank God, leaving behind a tightly-controlled panic.  
  
“Shame, though. You’re fun - lively. I’d have enjoyed you.” She adjusted her grip subtly, sighting down the barrel. “Something to remember you by and all that.”  
  
His phone rang.   
  
“Bloody hell.” Her eyes narrowed, and she lost the smile. “Answer that.”  
  
Slowly, eyes still on his captor, John pulled his phone from the pocket of his jacket. Glancing down, he saw it was from an unregistered number.   
  
Damn. Moriarty or Mycroft, and if it were Mycroft there would probably already be police breaking down the door.   
  
He clicked it on. “Yes.” It wasn’t even a question. The man would get as little from him as humanly possible.   
  
“Oh, yes. The gallant John Watson. Have you been a bad boy with my best girl yet, or should I ring back?” Manic and gloating was apparently the order of the day, with a side of patronizing.  
  
“Bit of hand-to-hand. A lot of snark.” John tried for something that could be construed as polite and still fish for information, probably completely transparently, but worth a shot. Maybe the psycho would tell him because it amused him.  “How about you, having a nice time?”   
  
“Lovely, perfectly lovely. Sherlock and I have had the most _amazing_ afternoon. I really can’t begin to tell you how much fun I’ve been having.” Was it possible for the ‘most dangerous man in London’ to sound giddy? Apparently it was. “We should do it again more often - weekly, maybe even three times a week! Wouldn’t that be marvelous?”  
  
John felt all the blood drain from his face. He gave a noncommittal ‘mm’ and hoped it would suffice. Sasha was starting to look bored, or maybe amused, and he was half-certain she was about to either shoot him or start coming on to him again. He wasn’t sure which option he prefered, really.  
  
“Oh, now, there’s no need to be mopey. Isn’t she perfect for you? Just the right sort of watchdog to work off some of that repressed _tension_ you’re carrying around.” Moriarty put a camp sing-song emphasis on the word tension that was positively obscene. “Not like our dear boy is likely to be much help with that, after all.”  
  
John was pretty sure that Moriarty heard the gravelly noise coming from his clenched jaw. The look on Sasha’s face told him that she certainly had. “Yes,” he agreed between his teeth, “She’s lovely.”   
  
“Knew you’d think so. I’m never wrong about these things.” Moriarty whistled a jaunty little tune, seemingly distracted, then snapped his fingers audibly. “Oh, there was a reason I was calling, wasn’t there? I knew it would come to me. Turn the speaker on, would you, and there’s a good boy.”  
  
Glaring daggers at the device, John jabbed the speaker button on his phone, wondering if he was about to get shot. _The afterlife had better be fucking fantastic._   
  
“Has he behaved himself?” Moriarty’s voice changed all at once the moment the speaker clicked on, from camp glee to a flat and reptilian coldness that made John’s spine try to crawl away and hide, and it was somehow worse than usual hearing it because he could see how much Sasha was _enjoying_ it.  
  
“Mostly.” She let her finger rest lightly against the trigger, taking up slack without pushing it past the break, and her voice was a thick icy sheen of serenity over a fathomless well of hunger. “Well enough. May I start with the knees, or do you want a clean through-and-through to the head?”  
  
John swallowed, ready to rush her and make it quicker rather than slower. Moriarty tsked. “No, no, no. Not today. Too nice a day for dead pets. Then Sherlock would be cranky, and I do want him to remember how _fun_ today was. Nothing like that. Just give him a kiss and send him on his way - something to remember you by.”  
  
Sasha’s expression shifted, just a hint of impatience and frustration that was buried before it had a chance to reach her voice, and she lowered the gun a fraction - enough to point it at his chest instead of his head. “And if he won’t stand for a kiss, sir?”  
  
“Then you can shoot him. Somewhere non-fatal.” Moriarty dismissed the question impatiently. “Now get on with it - we have things to do.”  
  
A wave of relief breaking over him, John stood up. Ignoring the gun, he grabbed a fistfull of Sasha’s blouse, pulled her forward, and locked his mouth over hers. She pressed into him, resting the gun against his waist, and did a very credible job of putting her tongue down his throat. It was, he was reluctant to admit, not entirely unpleasant.   
  
Then she shoved his chest enough to give herself room to move, dropped smoothly to one knee in front of him and pressed her left hand against him in a way that was too unexpected and intimate _not_ to drive a sound out of him.  
  
Moriarty laughed.  
  
The man’s laugh was unsettling at the best of times, but now the sound slithered through John in all the wrong ways, twisting whatever already corrupted desire he felt into a sick lump in his belly. He ended the call with unsteady fingers, stepped quickly away from Sasha and had his hand on the door before she said anything.  
  
“Have a pleasant day, John. And sweet dreams, of course.” She holstered the pistol and slid to her feet, resting her hand against the fridge with a nastily playful little smile. “Don’t worry - your shopping will still be here later if you decide to come back for it.”  
  
“It’s all yours,” John said over his shoulder. Then he pushed the door open and went out.  
  
If she followed him on the way home, he couldn’t pick her out of the crowd. That wasn’t the most reassuring of thoughts, but it would have to do. Of course, where he lived was no secret, and even if it had been Moriarty probably would have found out anyway. John was halfway through a text asking Mycroft to give him and Sherlock some permanent security before he decided that five minutes immediately after abduction and assault was not a good time to make decisions.   
  
The fact that every person on the street looked suspicious only confirmed his self-assessment. Try as he might, he couldn’t force himself to calm down, and after jumping at shadows for half a mile he was exhausted by the time he made it home.  
  
After unlocking his flat he scanned the inside from several angles before entering, looking around again after he’d bolted the door behind him. The parlour and kitchen got the same treatment, as did both bedrooms and the bathroom. Once he was satisfied he was alone in the flat, he collapsed in his chair, hands over his face. His own gun was in his shoulder-holster, now, which was a bit of a closing-the-door-after-the-horse but he really didn’t give a damn. It made him feel better.  
  
The bolt rattled in the door some little while later, and Sherlock came bounding up the stairs like a hound on the scent. “John!”   
  
Sherlock was lucky John had such steady nerves. As it was, he was on his feet with the barrel trained on the door when his friend came bolting in.   
  
“Jesus, Sherlock.” He holstered his weapon, running a hand through already mussed hair when long, thin fingers grabbed him by the biceps. “You’re all right?”  
  
“Fine, good, yes. Nearly mauled by a tiger - very exciting.” Sherlock’s hands were all over him - checking for injuries, probably. Hopefully. The alternative did not bear thinking on and yet he was definitely thinking about it. “Bruises along the ribs, at the throat... scent of fried bacon...signs of unsatisfied arousal... sweat from exertion... smell of light perfume and gun oil. You’ve had a busy day.”  
  
Exhaling all at once, John stepped back, trying to preserve his own sanity. “A tiger? _Exciting_ ?! God, I knew it!” He retreated to the kitchen, looking for the kettle and something to eat. “I’m abducted and trying not to get killed or shagged by a maniac and you’re having a jolly chase through London!”   
  
Sherlock stared after him, expression distracted and thoughtful, and then called his inquiry in far too mild a voice. “Are you jealous?”  
  
The roasting pan John found in the back of the cabinet made a really satisfying crash when he threw it against the back wall. “I’m bloody infuriated! Maybe _you_ like spending time with people who want to kill you but I don’t fancy it.” In the next cabinet, behind a beaker of hydrochloric acid, was the kettle. It looked whole, if a little corroded, and John started washing it.  
  
Sherlock drifted over to hover in the doorway, his voice more curious than anything else. “You seem to have enjoyed it. Physically, if nothing else. I would rather have had you with me, of course, but there wasn’t a practical way to deal with that except to press on.”  
  
The warmth that spread through John’s chest at Sherlock’s comment was a nice contrast to the rest of the day but put an annoying damper on his temper. He had so few tirades, it was nice to let go every now and again. “I can’t help it if I respond to certain stimuli. Doesn’t mean I’m having a good time.” The kettle, full of water now and probably non-toxic, sat warming on the stove while John hunted for tea and sugar. Hopefully they were still safe to ingest.  
  
“Ah.” Sherlock moved up behind him and interrupted his search by resting his left hand against the back of John’s neck, matching his fingers to the bruises Moran had left there. “This sort of stimuli?”  
  
A shiver running through him, John turned around, catching Sherlock’s hand. “Sherlock, I just had a traumatic experience,” he explained, much more gently than he’d expected. “You don’t poke it right after.”  
  
“Oh.” Sherlock studied him for a moment, allowing John to keep hold of his hand - that was unusual. “Tomorrow?”  
  
John didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or punch him. He settled for releasing his hand and reaching for mugs. “Maybe.”     
  
 _Is there anything that you wouldn’t let him do to you if he troubled himself to ask first?_   
  
Sighing, he set the tea to steep. For the rest of the evening, at least, he could pretend that he wasn’t completely doomed.

**Author's Note:**

> While we enjoy British TV, Dragon and I are American, so if any Brits out there see a language mistake, please let us know.


End file.
